Alone, Together
by Lady Cailan
Summary: A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.  Draco/Hermione one-shot.


**Alone, Together**

A Draco/Hermione fiction

By Lady Cailan

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><p><em>"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."– Kurt Vonnegut<em>

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><p>They take her.<p>

Much to Harry's despair and Ron's heartbreak.

Ignoring Molly's tears and pleas.

Leering at them from the other side of the stone wall surrounding the Burrow, with a darkening sky behind them. They have found Harry's hiding spot. They have found the Order.

They have tortured her once, at Malfoy Manor. Still, Bellatrix's laughter rings out into the darkness, her black eyes snapping rabidly. Still, Greyback stands guard, like the devil's sentinel, challenging anyone and everyone to take a step forward, to try their best, and if they do, he is ready.

Ready to rip them to shreds, to spill their blood, to destroy them just like they are destroying everyone else.

What true choice do they have? If they try to save her, she is as good as dead.

And so they take her.

Hermione. Her name is a deformed scream ripped from Ron's cracked lips.

Hermione. The image of her eyes, wide and thunderstruck, is burned into Harry's mind forever.

Hermione is gone.

She is pulled into the blackness. There one moment, gone the next.

They do not know where she'll be taken.

They pray for death, for it is merciful. Is death not a salvation? During war, is it not a blessing?

And so they pray for death.

* * *

><p>They find her by accident.<p>

Months later, a span of time that truly is innumerable. To Harry, it feels like a lifetime, and to Ron, a painful eternity.

They find her in the last place they think to look, in the place where she has once been tortured. It is a wretched place, abandoned and run down by age and destruction. It stinks of death and agony.

In the darkness, they can see her. Reclined on the damp, hard cellar stones. Stones slimy with moss and the nearby drip, drip of the water. In the weak light of the single, overhead window they can see the lines and scars along her once beautiful skin. They can see the discolorations of her tortures. The hard, sharp lines of her hunger. The matted, dull curls that had once been glorious cinnamon-chestnut hair.

One of her arms is bound in rusted, metal chains that dig into her tender flesh, leaving bloody, bruised markings. She is slumped, a thing twisted and discarded, like an old plaything no longer wanted. Life, no longer valued. An object, and not a person.

Ron moves first.

Is she sleeping? Or is it much, much worse than that? Her name is a choked, whispered uttering. It is then, that he sees it.

Her other hand, stretched out along the wet cobbles, lying in a puddle of filth, but locked in the hand of another. Long, white fingers clasp her own.

He is not propped up, like she is. He is prostrate in the filth of what had once been his Manor. He is in the cellar, and not upstairs, where he has always belonged. His face, and blond hair are now caked with dirt. He has fallen from grace. Fallen from favor. Fallen as low as the woman next to him.

And his fingers, skeletal and emaciated, purplish and pale, are anchored in hers. A touch can say things without words, it is true. A touch can communicate where there is no speech. The space between them seems wide, in the midst of war and torture. They are here, alone. But their hands link them.

They are alone, together.

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><p>They sit on opposite sides of Molly's kitchen table. Somehow, the Burrow is not a happy place anymore. Somehow, the kitchen is not as cozy and the banter not as lighthearted.<p>

Words cannot communicate their joy. The heart cannot express how much they love having her home.

But amongst the laughter they are forcing, and the joy that they want to feel, something is not right. It is Hermione. She sits, staring at her plate, unable to eat, unable to utter a word.

Her face is a painting of the terrors she has endured. In her eyes, a last glimmer of day, the sunlight fading into a murky twilight, the loss of all hope. She is not the same; they have broken her.

"Hermione, what did they do to you?"

Ron speaks, and his words fall on hollow ears, for she does not even stir, trembling only at the sound of her name. She cannot say, cannot express how stupid those words are, in light of what she has been through.

Ron reaches, a gentle touch to her thin shoulder, and she flinches; it is a violent, sharp movement, and her eyes are haunted, the eyes of a frightened thing, and not the girl he loves. It is then, her companion rises up, trembling under the strain that he has been put through. His gray eyes flash with hatred and despair.

"Don't you touch her!"

The words are sharp, and in them are the echoes of screams, terrified screams that beg for death, beg for mercy. He is not the boy they remember; he is afraid, alone. His words are not demands, but pleas. Pleas that have passed his lips before, in vain.

For she has been hurt more times than he cares to recall.

Hermione moves to the sink and she retches, and they watch as she stands there trembling, ochre hair falling around her shoulders. She cannot move. She is alone.

Only when she feels his long fingers intertwine with hers, does she gather strength. He understands. He is there. The gap between them is great, but when he holds her hand, she is not so alone.

She moves from the kitchen, out into the courtyard, staring up at an endless sky dotted with stars. She realizes that it has been months since she has seen such a sky.

They stand, fingers intertwined, each taking comfort in the other.

They are alone, together.

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><p>They cannot understand. Not even the passage of time makes it clear. What it was like, and what it will be like now. They do not realize what pain can truly be like. What loneliness really is, and what it is to be truly hopeless.<p>

They want to know, but words cannot explain.

"We were alone," he says. The boy he was once is gone. His smirk no longer exists, the hatred has been wiped away completely. "They broke us. We were alone."

But those words mean nothing to those who have not been there. And they will never understand.

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><p>They find them, together, in the sitting room.<p>

The fire is blazing brightly in the hearth, offering heat and light to those within.

One of her hands is in his, holding it tightly, refusing to let go. Her face is pressed against his leg, as she curls closer to him on the old, worn carpet. The firelight dances along her curls, chestnut to caramel, and chocolate to cinnamon. Her eyes are closed, and she is at peace.

Draco sits in Arthur's old chair, on his lap a book spread open. His fingers dance along hers, his thumb tenderly running along her thin, scarred fingertips. He wordlessly shows her he loves her, for a touch can mean more than any word.

The story is one he has heard as a child, and she smiles when she hears his voice. She has found peace here, with him. He will always understand, she knows. She listens, for in his voice only, can she find comfort.

'Says the little girl to the little boy,  
>"What shall we do?"<br>Says the little boy to the little girl,  
>"I will kiss you!"'<p>

She leans up, hair cascading down her back, her fingers reaching up to touch him, to stroke the softness of his worn and haggard face. He leans down, his thumb tracing her lips, and then he is kissing her. One tender kiss, which says more than he could ever put into words.

They understand each other. They know what it means to be alone. But they are alone, together.

~Fin~

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><p>AN: I took a break from Crimson. I had to write this – otherwise it would be too distracting. I'm working on finishing up the chapter now. I wrote this in about five minutes. Good? Bad? Draco's short poem is a children's nursery rhyme.


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